The adventure of learning to fully live while healing from Complex PTSD

A self destructive storm- TW- self harm/suicidal ideation

Some days, the best that a person can do is to just hold themselves as gently as possible and do their best to not be hateful to themselves. Going forward is impossible. Going backwards would be all too easy. The urge to give in to the desire to drown in self hatred feels almost impossible to resist.

Sometimes a person might start to slip- hopefully not too badly- because it can feel as though you are being unrelentingly drawn down through a funnel into a dark pit. It seems as though all of your instincts are shouting at you that you have to be hurt. “You have to pay in blood and pain.” It doesn’t matter that you have no idea why or who or what you have to pay for. You start to see images of blood- blood pooling, blood swirling in water. Even though you have never cut, you start to think about what it would be like.

Then, deep in your brain, you hear the word, “slut.” And it is like you are pulled into a nightmare world of imagined sexual degradation. It is as if your mind pulls out all of your worst fears and you know that is all that you are good for. It is like you are being told that you are trash that any man should be able to use and that you have to be available to be used.

Then the despair hits- “I can’t abandon my mother and if I stand by her, then I can’t be true to myself.” And it feels so overwhelming that it is intolerable to live with. You find yourself making plans as to how you could kill yourself and arguing with yourself about how in the end your spouse and child would be better off without you.

Your mind continues to go round and round in a self destructive haze, desperate to act out the desire to harm yourself. Eventually, in desperation, you do something slightly harmful, allowing you to break out of the cycle. But that brings its own sense of shame that you have harmed yourself. You take yourself off to the couch, wrap yourself up in a blanket, curl up with the cat, and concentrate on breathing until you are finally able to reach through and give yourself a bit of comfort.

That was last night for me. Today has been an exercise in trying to not slip back into such a damaging place. It is pretty obvious that I have some very young, very traumatized parts that are currently in a tremendous amount of pain. So I am doing my best to be as gentle and non-judgmental with myself as possible. It occurred to me last night, after I finally calmed myself, that in some ways I had been acting like a panicked animal, caught in a trap, that was trying to gnaw its leg off in order to escape. There was a characteristic of desperation about all of the impulses that were thrown at me last night.

I’ve also realized that while I am dealing with some difficult things and am probably prone to being triggered right now, I also have something going on biochemically that probably is exacerbating the effects. So, a trigger that might otherwise be a 6 or a 7 is turned into a 10 or more. Historically, when I return from a trip to a very sunny place during the winter to a very dark home, I go through a depressive crash. I think that is happening right now, but it is intertwined with being so triggered, that it is hard to untangle what is going on. It actually is a big help for me to realize that this completely over the top reaction might not all be me- it might partially be my brain reacting poorly to the lack of serotonin. This is one of the things that Mama Bear has been trying to help me learn to recognize- my reactions aren’t always entirely about the trauma. Sometimes they are biochemical- for instance, we are wondering if the antidepressant that I am on is making me anxiety prone. Sometimes they are more about current issues than past trauma. Learning to not attribute everything to being a trauma reaction can be useful.

Anyways, I am no longer experiencing the urge to heap self hatred and thoughts of self harm on myself and I sincerely hope that I am done for now. It isn’t entirely gone, though. I can still sense just around the corner of my mind the simultaneous understanding of what it feels like to know that telling myself to harm myself is both the wrong thing to do and yet to also believe that it is the safest/best/most pain free thing to do. I know, it makes no sense.

Inside, I am in disarray and shock to some extent. I have a session tomorrow and to some extent I want to work on what some of the triggering factors were, but at the same time, I also just want to work on putting myself back together again, so I feel secure.

I don’t understand why I go through these very destructive self hate storms periodically. I think that this is the third time that it has happened. I don’t think that they are going to stop, though, until I come to some resolution about my parents.

I know that I can’t be the only one out there struggling with thoughts/impulses of self harm. I also know that I have no idea of what the best course of action is for anyone else. However, I do invite anyone reading to take a steadying/grounding breath with me and for this moment do the best that you can for yourself. That’s what I am going to be doing- moment by moment.

Right there with you CM trying to fight off the sabotaging inner demons of self hatred and destruction. Tending to the little ones inside gently and being kind to yourself is so important as is grounding yourself in the very positive relationships and real love and care others have for you in the here and now xx

I’m having trouble with getting stuck in the feeling states of the parts and not being able to help myself. I just feel so bleak about it all. I figure that it has to be the light related depression, because nothing really has changed, but I want so much to hide my feeling self away from the world and never come out again. Not to anyone.

That is a very hard space to be in for long periods of time but it will end and it is important to remind yourself that this horrible patch will pass. It sounds like you’re aware of a huge amount of shame which I usually find to be excruciating. I hope any biochemical imbalances can be addressed rapidly so you can get relief. Sending gentle hugs xxx

I can relate too. I’m sorry it’s so hard. Have you thought of getting a s.a.d. light? I just ordered one as I’m so affected by the dreariness. I’ve been told over and over how much they can help, so I’m going to try it.

I also crash after good things. I still struggle with a form of self harm and no one knows that, not even my Hubby.

I actually have a light box and use it from about October until March or April. I’ve used it for over 10 years and it really does help. Unfortunately, going from Southern CA to one of the darkest places in the continental US is more than even the light box can compensate for. I also had to cut back, because we think that the light box might have been making me migraine prone.

Why is it that some part of us thinks that it is the right thing to harm ourselves?

How true… I’m so sorry to read this, you may as well have been in my head recently! I have always tended to use food to starve and punish but I still couldn’t control my emotions or thoughts this way and during a crisis I ended cutting instead to find a sense of release which helped which I’ve never done.

I didn’t tell my T I couldn’t, so shameful but now it seems I’m numb I cant seem to express emotions. Its like I am the child I used to be holding everything in while feeling sad and deeply unhappy – not sure what’s worse crying or being unable to. Hang in there and ill breath with you. X

It works much better when I can share these things with Mama Bear, but getting myself to share can be excruciating. And then something seems to derail trying to process such intense feelings and memories as soon as I do manage to take the chance and share. It’s all so exhausting.